When was the last time you felt like you were out of control? Out of control of your own emotions? Out of control of your actions? Out of control and the actions of those around you?
I haven't written about my brother Will in a little while, but I want the entire world to know that it isn't because I am not thinking about him. It is because I have to move forward. I have to be everything God wants me to be, because that is who I am turning out to be...He is resculpting me.
I think Will felt out of control. I think he felt out of control of the pills. I think he felt out of control in his family. I think he felt out of control in the very few things he still had faith in. Life seemed to be running him over without any knowledge or permission from him. That's what life does sometimes...it doesn't ask your permission for anything, it just keeps moving like some train that has no time to stop before it hits something. It just kept moving and ready or not, deal with it. I think too many trains hit him all at once.
Ironically enough, he worked for a company that loads trains, which just happens to be my favorite nonliving thing in the world. He worked really hard and worked whenever he got the chance. His fingers were caked with grease permanently from the years of sweat he put into making broken things right again. I always looked up to him because he did something that I couldn't do because of the things God put inside him. He made broken things right. I always wanted to be able to do that. I hate looking at broken things. They shouldn't be that way, no matter who broke them. He was a picture of a part of who God is to me and my wife.
Still his Gojo sits in a little bag dangling from my wash tub he used to scrub his filthy hands with. I want to blame people for what he did. Everyone wants to, but real discernment will show that no one can change the actions and reactions of another person...only your own self. I hate this fact. I hate it because it makes you feel out of control. It makes you question everything another person says and wonder about everyone you look at and love. It makes you eternally sad.
For those that read this blog often, I am OK. I am good. Things are going really well. I am recovering. But I need to write about my brother sometimes. Some days, something small that crosses your vision, like a little bottle of mechanic's soap, can trigger really intense feelings of regret and just missing someone...whatever that feeling is called. So I write about it because it's all I know to do and tomorrow I will wake up fine and forget for a few hours until another crosses my vision. This is life. We get our hearts broken pretty often. The way we define ourselves is in how we react. We can hate God. We can hate people. We can give up faith in all things. We can give up the air we breathe, but this doesn't make what happened...not happen. It makes what happened become what happens. Even to us. We can take hold of what has happened and give up, or we can let go and look toward the Heavens knowing God ISN'T there...He is HERE with us. God with us...Immanuel...God with us...Jesus. This is faith. This is what separates us from those who parish. Hope. Faith. Love. Not just in anything, but in Christ.
Sing.
Migrate.
Thanks for reading...Z
